


Falsity

by orphan_account



Series: could've been [3]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Compliant, F/M, M/M, its kinda both
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-18 03:07:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13672983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: He wants too much. He's always wanted the world. Some things, maybe, you just can't have, no matter how hard you work.





	Falsity

It's been only five days and he's already abroad again for the next competition; why did he wait this long after the Grand Prix to tell her? To delay the inevitable: but his head is a storm and his parents want them to work it out. And she's not here, and his parents aren't yet.

JJ half unpacked his suitcase at the hotel and only managed to distract himself with practice at the rink for so long. He only managed to smile for so long: Emil was there, and JJ said (heard himself say), that he and Bella, they're just going through a rough patch, they'll make it out, but sure seemed like Emil believed it more than JJ himself did.

It's probably out of desperation that he lands his jumps in practice and doesn't give his coach anything to complain about, except a few picks at his step sequence.

Otabek is here, too, in the general sense, competing. JJ doesn't know if he's  _actually_  here or not, right this moment.

JJ hasn't talked to Bella. He didn't go to confession. He has something to confess and yet he doesn't; he's never felt this doomed to be tied to his own soul as such. His parents are confused. They don't know why the engagement is "paused". JJ is confused. Well, his parents don't know what he and Beks got up to when Beks trained with them, stayed with them, shared the same  _fucking room_. Not much! They didn't do _too_ much. JJ's family and Bella, a barrier for that. Maybe that's why Bella knew who it was, though. Maybe it's never gone away.

So JJ gets back to the hotel after stretch and cool down and falls back down on the bed and wonders what the hell he's going to do, what he can make out of this mess and damn it, damn his own stupid heart for sticking itself in every-which-place.

He loves skating! He loves music, he loves his family and his country and Bella and Beks - and most of the time he loves himself but it's all dependent and interconnected and he can't make sense of what he wants. Well, he wants too much. He's always wanted the world. Some things, maybe, you just can't have, no matter how hard you work.

He has his and Bella's ring both sitting on the hotel nightstand.

Maybe she'll text him good luck.

Maybe not.

He's so alone. He's too alone. If there's one thing JJ knows it's that, by himself, he doesn't feel like much more than a flaky gold coat on a fake medal.

============================

When JJ opens the door to his hotel room, Otabek starts looking down at the feet of his rival, former roommate, and everything else undecided and in between.

"Hey, this is just about last time, the Grand Prix, I wanted to say I'm sorry and I shouldn't have come to your room to start with . . . "

As he's speaking his eyes find the courage to move up, up, until maybe he'll find JJ's blue eyes and a lighthearted forgiveness he hopes for (and doesn't, somewhere deep inside him, because forgiveness means it's over), but his line of sight stops at JJ's hand loose at his side. There are two familiar and shining engagement rings sitting in his palm.

"What did you do," Otabek says abruptly, in a breath, gaze jerking up to meet JJ's, whose eyes look red.

JJ, usually so proficient at churning words out of that fast mouth of his, opens his lips and then shuts them, shifting his weight.

"I don't know," he says, too quietly. His dark undercut is messy. The hotel hall is quiet enough already.

"What did you do," Otabek repeats. His jaw clenches.  _Why did you do it?_ Because one ring used to be on JJ's finger, and the other on Isabella's.

"I told her," JJ says.

Otabek waits, stuffing his hands in his pockets while JJ hangs on the doorknob with one hand and holds the rings in his other.

But JJ doesn't say anything, looking like all the words in his head are tangled up and won't come out.

"You'll work things out?" Otabek says to fill the space, to try to get some answers, out of the body that was under his hands at last competition, from the mouth that told him,  _no, we shouldn't, I mean, I can't,_ and didn't sound like his heart was all in, but his mind and muscle were, to hold him back.

"Maybe not," JJ's voice cracks and he looks down.

Otabek doesn't know what to do, although he knows what he wants.

"OK," he says, tonelessly. He forces his mind to move to the moment, to continue with the words he came to say. "I was just stopping by to say it won't happen again, anyways. After the Grand Prix. I was just lonely." Otabek hadn't planned on saying that last bit.  _Lonely._ He likes being lonely most of the time. But sometimes if you think about it too long, you realize you don't have as many options as you thought were in your back pocket, and you're too alone. He had thought about it, after Yuri's Welcome to the Madness, realized indeed he didn't have an option because he didn't really want it, after all. Will there be a replacement? That's the first word that springs to mind, but it's more than that, it's a long history, a flame kept burning in the watches of the night, if you will, if you're hopeful enough. No, it's something with a lot more precedence than  _replacement._

"Yeah, lonely," JJ says and looks aside. "Um, I - sorry, I - " JJ looks at him and then back away, "It's just I gotta figure this out."

"OK," Otabek says. He turns to go. But he can't. Not with his frame-of-view jabbed so suddenly to a shift with this news. Well, everything is called into question now. "What do you want, JJ?" he demands to know, tone hard and abrupt, more than he'd like: he'd like it softer, closer, asked after the fact when their lips had met and the answer was made obvious. But that's too much to ask for.

"Everything," JJ says, his blue eyes too clear, maybe streaked and polished by tears.

And Otabek can't look at that face.

So he leaves.


End file.
